Kamala Harris slams Georgia’s GOP gubernatorial candidate over ‘voter suppression’

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) on Wednesday said gubernatorial candidate Brian Kemp (R) is overseeing voter suppression in Georgia in his role as secretary of state, following reports of black residents being left off of state voting rolls.

“When a candidate for governor — who also happens to be responsible for overseeing Georgia’s elections — is trying to purge 53,000 mostly Black voters from the voting rolls, we have to call it what it is: voter suppression,” Harris tweeted, along with an article from the Nation discussing alleged voter suppression. “We need to fight back even harder at the ballot box.”

When a candidate for governor — who also happens to be responsible for overseeing Georgia’s elections — is trying to purge 53,000 mostly Black voters from the voting rolls, we have to call it what it is: voter suppression. We need to fight back even harder at the ballot box. https://t.co/hMZZCXDfhF

— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) October 31, 2018

Kemp’s opponent, Stacey Abrams, accused him of malicious voter suppression after a report emerged that 53,000 voter registration applications are on hold because they did not meet state law requiring information on the applications to exactly match that held by the government.

Of the 53,000 applications on hold, 70 percent are reportedly from black voters.

{mosads}Kemp requested a federal court delay an injunction that prevents election officials from tossing absentee ballots where the signature does not exactly match the one on a person’s voter registration card.

A federal district judge denied Kemp’s request this week saying a delay “would only cause confusion, as Secretary Kemp has already issued guidance in accordance with the injunction to county elections officials.”

Kemp is leading Abrams by an average of 1.4 percentage points across polls, according to RealClearPolitics.